Are Democratic politicians equally deplorable as Republican politicians?

Perhaps more. Which is worse, to champion greed or to enrich yourself through railing against it.

All politicians are equally worthless

Democrats don’t demonize LGBT people or immigrants.

And that somehow makes them less worthless than Republicans?
I don’t demonize those people either. Can I now feel just a little bit better about myself than I did 5 minutes ago?

Yes. Maybe not in the same ways, maybe not as much. But, yes.

@josie You do demonize them if you vote Republican. You are complicit.

I tend to think that any statement about “all” is a useless generalization.

I agree @janbb , you state something this politician lied about a certain situation and some one always has to pipe up well they all lie.
That may be true to a certain extent but does nothing to answer the question as to why the one lied.

I disagree with @josie in that there are have been some very fine polititians, both Republican and Democrat. Also, I wouldn’t trust anybody but a politician to do politics, just like I wouldn’t trust a non-surgeon to take out my gallbladder.

Recently, however, most of the Republican polititians who I once admired are now being subsumed by Trumpism—they are either converting to it, complicit, silent, or they are being beaten by Trumpists.

Don’t get me wrong, there are Democratic polititians I absolutely can’t stand. But I would vote for any one of them over Trump.

The two parties, are similar to two different diseases. The Republicans are doing the most destructive things to the country, and it’s people (currently. )

I would definitely say that both parties are deplorable. One is just our most recent monster.

I’m with @josie…all politicians are pretty useless. They have long ago stopped leading and have started self-serving. I mean look at some of the success stories: Bernie was pretty much broke before he got elected. Now he is a multi-millionaire. Not bad for a salary of $175k/yr, especially when you need to maintain two residences. Bob Corker isn’t any better. He owed between $25M – $120M when he was elected in 2007. Now he is $69M to the good. Again, not bad considering the salary and having to maintain residences. It is on both sides of the aisle and there is no accountability.

@seawulf575: I just googled Bernie Sanders and Bob Corker, just to see where they made their money and how much their net worth is. Bob Corker had a construction company which he sold in 1990 and that got him 45 million dollars. Bernie Sanders I googled more extensively because he spend his lifetime in politics, or at least the majority of it. His net worth is presently 2 million dollars. 2 million dollars is not a lot of money. People in my family who are well off but not “rich rich” have more money than that. If you look at the value of their homes, in the area we live in (NY area, one of the wealthiest in the country), you easily get 2 mil. 2 million dollars may sound like a lot, and it’s definitely more than I have, but today, 2 million is not a huge amount (nowhere near Trump’s billions, but again, that is easy to figure out from his lifetime of work).

@jca2 Corker also get big into stock trading right after he was elected. Amazingly he accounted for about 93% of all stock trading done by congress members (something like 1200 trades his first year) and basically gained on all his trades. That smacks of insider trading except…wait for it…insider trading laws don’t apply to Congress. Yet another way they serve themselves.

You guys are missing the point if you believe politicians are useless. The fact that a man can accumulate a fortune while supposedly subsisting on a Federal salary should be a hint that SOMEBODY’s interests are being looked after (other than themselves). If those somebodies aren’t the folks paying those modest Federal salaries, exactly which class benefits from Congressional governance. When I was born corporate income taxes accounted for 40% of Federal revenue flowing into the treasury. Today that figure is below 13% and Trump’s latest tax cuts just happen to be the most glaring transfer of wealth in my adult lifetime. And there is no need to stipulate from whom that wealth is being transferred or to which class the benefits accrue. The system is self maintaining as long as the assurance survives that membership in the Congress is restricted to the class to whom the wealth is being transferred. This is why anyone of modest means entering the Congress must swiftly be elevated to a place at the trough.

@stanleybmanly I do not have a say in who runs corporations across this country, but I do have a say in who makes fiscal decisions. And when the people elect invariably get rich, that means they are corrupt. And they have passed laws to make their corruption legal. Periodically we get a glimpse of one or another elected official who is so brazen and obvious that they have to be called on it.
Our elected officials are not supposed to be in office to get rich. They are supposed to be filling a role of making decisions for this country. They are not doing that…they are making decisions for themselves. You can blame the guy making the bribe (or the lobbyists or corporations or whatever else) who you have no control over, OR you can blame the guy who is supposed to be supporting you and isn’t. And it isn’t one party or the other…they are all doing the same thing. Which means they are useless for their elected positions.

WOW!!! ^^ I actually believe and agree with what @seawulf575 is saying, that won’t make me a conservative will it??

Agree. Politicians doing trading aka insider trading is evil. I would probably do it myself if I was in that position. Easy money.

Btw, I think Bernie wrote books and earned substantial profit.

You guys think a man working his whole life and amassing wealth of 2 mil makes him rich? If he owns a house that’s worth 6 or 700k and he has some savings and stocks, that could easily account for the 2 mil.

Bernie Sanders net worth, discussed: https://www.quora.com/What-is-Bernie-Sanders-net-worth

I agree with @jca2.

Many many people are worth $1—$2 million by the time they are in their 70’s. That’s not rich. He’s been earning $150+ as a senator for many years.

This is what we “liberals” talk about all the time. People making salaries of $150k+ SAVE a lot of money. Conservatives with lower-middle incomes may want to believe the more money the more spending, and so they think taxing spending is better, but there is a point where most people don’t spend more. They squirrel away for rainy days, safety, for retirement, and to give to their adult children eventually.

Look at Q’s on here and you will see often times the jellies with the most money spend very little, and conserve money in many places.

This is not what happened to me, but I will give you a for instance. I bought my second house for $225,000 in 1995. I think my husband and I were making $80k or $90k combined. If I had continued living there the house is now worth $650k with upgrades, so I’m going to go low and say $580k if I had never spent much money on an overhaul. My house would be paid off by now, so I would own it outright.

Our salaries continued to grow, but most expenses stay static. Let’s after 4 years we are making $150k. Sure we spend a little more, but we are still saving $40k a year, plus earning interest, and even a little investing in retirement funds earning a little more. A portion of the money is in 401k’s and and IRA’s.

Salaries continue to increase, but the average couple probably has a couple of kids, which eats at being able to save. Let’s say the mom goes part time, and her wage goes to child expenses, but her husband is making well over $100k, maybe $120k.

Let’s see so far.

Wealth age 50:

House $580,000

Savings at $40k a year for 23 years is $920,000 (that’s without compounding interest or the stock market!).

So, that 50 year old married couple is at over $1.5 million more or less in total wealth.

Some years maybe the savings was less, but remember that with interest the money is growing.

Lower it saving only $20k a year, but add ten years to age 60. Still a huge number. Just earning savings accounts or CD’s an average of 2% over time would add a few hundred thousand.

This is a very common scenario the past 30 years. Like I said, it’s not my actual scenario. I didn’t stay in the second house, we moved after 4 years. I don’t have kids, but I spent a lot on cars that mostly depreciated, probably similar money. The salary was more or less accurate when we bought the house, but after that I took liberties in my example to demonstrate the possibility of how wealth accumulates. I didn’t work at all for several years, I was part time many years, right now my husband is unemployed and I make about $9,000 a year.

@seawulf575 sure you can and should fault the politicians. But there’s no curing the problem through seeking out honest politicians. The corruption itself is endemic because it is legal. Once you are compelled to comply with the doctrine that money is speech there is no longer ANY defense against those with the “voices” buying and selling politicians. Resistance is futile, and even the most dogged idealist will in the end discover that to oppose the setup is futile. It’s like opposing erosion and you either participate or fall on the wrong side of that line demarcating winners and losers.

@SQUEEKY2 I think you’re safe ;-)